McKenney - Sallys candy addiction: tasty truffles, fudges & treats for your sweet-tooth fix

TASTY TRUFFLES, FUDGES & TREATS FOR YOUR SWEET-TOOTH FIX

SALLY MCKENNEY

Sprinkle Lover & Founder of Sallys Baking Addiction.com

2015 text and photos by Sally McKenney

www.sallysbakingaddiction.com

First published in the United States of America in 2015 by

Race Point Publishing, a member of

Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.

142 West 36th Street, 4th Floor

New York, NY 10018

Telephone: (212)779-4972

Fax: (212)779-6058

quartoknows.com

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners. All images in this book have been reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent of the artists concerned, and no responsibility is accepted by producer, publisher, or printer for any infringement of copyright or otherwise, arising from the contents of this publication. Every effort has been made to ensure that credits accurately comply with information supplied.

We apologize for any inaccuracies that may have occurred and will resolve inaccurate or missing information in a subsequent reprinting of the book.

Digital Edition: 978-1-62788-746-5
Hardcover Edition: 978-1-63106-031-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Editorial Director: Jeannine Dillon

Managing Editor: Erin Canning

Project Editor: Hallie Einhorn

Designer: Heidi North

TO MY BLOG READERS.

ESPECIALLY THOSE OF YOU WHO ENCOURAGE SPRINKLES AND MORE CHOCOLATE.

YOU MADE THIS HAPPEN FOR ME.

C reating this cookbook was challenging, yet exciting. And I could not have done it alone. Thank you to the entire Race Point Publishing crew for helping me produce a second cookbook that I feel is the perfect sequel. Thank you especially to Jeannine Dillon, Hallie Einhorn, Heidi North, Katie Fawkes, Erin Canning, and Becky Gissel. We make one sweet (get it?) cookbook team!

Thank you to my friends and family. Youve all done this process with me before and you continued to show the same level of support with my second book. Mom, you are my favorite taste-tester. Your very excited, smiley-face text messages about Caramel Turtles (see ) made chapter 5 very fun to write. Dad, thank you for all your advice and for pushing me to be the very best I can be. Thank you especially to Sarah, Saundra, the entire Quinn family, Kristen, Amy, Marie, Molly, Kristin, Erin, and Jess. And thank you, Katy, for your endless encouragement and glasses of wine!

Thank you to my readers!! (I want to use about a thousand exclamation points here.) Youre my favorite people on the planet. Your sweet teeth and constant excitement about cookbook #2 made it easier to write. You told me your favorite candies, which helped me create the table of contents. Not only this, youve made my blog, Sallys Baking Addiction, a fun-filled community. Please never stop being you! Can I say I love you here? Because I love you.

And finally, thank you to my husband, Kevin. Thank you for all those late nights manning the stove, stirring caramel, toffee, and fudge while I wrote blog posts. Im sure learning how to properly make toffee was the first thing on your list after marrying me. Thank you for doing all the dishes even after working all day, for your daily emergency grocery store runs, for taste-testing every single recipe, and for smiling through it all. But most of all? Thank you for believing in me when I felt like giving up.

T here is sticky goop on my hands, sugar all over the floor, and Im pretty sure I just bought out every single bar of Ghirardelli chocolate from all the grocery stores within a five-mile radius. Its early December and Im making dozens of holiday candies to gift this year. As I cook my seventh batch of fudge, Im beginning to rethink this whole only homemade gifts this year! plan.

Welcome to my candy land. Its sort of like my baking addiction, but theres not as much oven involved. Here we trade flour for sugar, and the milk for heavy cream, and instead of a batch of cookies, well bond over a batch of chocolate-covered caramels. Oh, there are cookies, too. Wait until you hit the last chapter of this book.

I chose candy as the subject for my second cookbook because, well, truthfully, it scared me a little. How do you use a candy thermometer? What is the correct temperature for heating chocolate? Is there a right method for taffy pulling? Wait, what is taffy pulling? The candy world can be an intimidating place. I felt like I needed a sugar PhD just to get through one batch of fudge. But then I remembered that I was also scared the day I decided to quit my safe day job in finance so I could pursue my blog full time. Okay, maybe I was terrified. But I did it, and I never looked back. And guess what? It was the best decision I ever made.

Like blogging, candy making wasnt always easy for me. In fact, I felt like making candy was nearly impossible and left me feeling defeated. When I began several years ago, I quickly became frustrated at the lack of instructional detail and troubleshooting tips. Um, hello? The world was practically screaming for an easy candy-making book! Thats when I decided to take matters into my own hands. I dove headfirst into candy land and began teaching myself through experience, advice from my peers, and plenty of mistakes. I burned pans, seized pounds of chocolate, lost a rubber spatula in The Great 2010 Melt (lets not talk about it), and made some funky brittle substance that nearly broke my teeth. My dentist loves that story.

I understand that the thought of candy making can be overwhelming. I get it, Ive been there. But I wrote this book to help give you the confidence to make candy from scratch. If you want to learn how to make chewy taffy for your children, smooth truffles for a bake sale, old-fashioned fudge for your grandchildren, caramels for your friends, and chocolates for your sweetheart, let me help you. Ive cooked my way through batches of toffee just so I can tell you what NOT to do. And, well, so Id be able to eat really delicious homemade toffee. Please refer to the toffee goodness on 111.